On Friday, November 18, 2011, many Texarkana area residents began receiving telephone calls from an individual purporting himself to be a Federal Drug Enforcement Agent. The fraudulent caller led the recipient to believe they were the target of a narcotics investigation dealing with the unlawful delivery of narcotics to their residence via internet orders.

The reported incidents involved a telephone number from a Virginia area code and telephone service provider. Based on initial investigations, the perpetrators of this scam are utilizing internet “spoofing” software to have bogus telephone numbers assigned to them for caller I.D. purposes.

These calls are bogus, and residents should not be alarmed. Law Enforcement would not make telephone calls of this nature. Persons receiving calls of this nature should simply hang up. Do not attempt to call the number that appears on caller I.D. Reverse charges may apply in some cases.

The callers may attempt to have the recipient of the call wire money to an account to dispose of the bogus criminal charges. The Texarkana, Arkansas Police Department will continue to investigate this series of calls to determine their origin, which may be international in nature. TAPD currently has all the information necessary for the investigation and would like to advise citizens that there is no need to report this particular scam to officers.